Despite a strong evidence-base for the efficacy of asthma care intervention programs in reducing asthma morbidity among low-income minority children, little progress has been made in implementing and sustaining asthma care programs at the community and state level. In order to reduce asthma disparities it is critical to engage community stakeholders in implementing and sustaining systems of care that reach high-risk children. Because one of the core missions of federally-funded Head Start programs is to provide preventive health services and screening to their low-income preschool students, Head Start represents an ideal community setting for establishing an Asthma Empowerment Zone. Our multi-disciplinary asthma health disparities collaborative group has a long and successful history of developing and evaluating multi-level community based interventions for asthma management in Head Start. We propose to draw on our established health and research partnership with Maryland Head Start programs, the Maryland State Department of Education Office of Child Care and the Maryland Head Start Association to implement and evaluate a multi-level intervention for pediatric asthma entitled Head Start Controls Asthma in Preschoolers (HS-CAP), built upon our evidence-based asthma interventions. We propose to leverage a recent policy initiative, Maryland EXCELS that provides incentives for child care centers to obtain quality ratings in asthma care. The purpose of this planning grant will be to identify and engage Head Start and other key community stakeholders to conduct a community needs assessment based on the USDHHS community needs assessment toolkit that will inform necessary refinement and adaptations of HS-CAP, and establish strong partnerships to ensure successful implementation of the HS-CAP program. Results of this project will directly inform a controlled trial that will evaluate the effectiveness of the HS-CAP program in improving child asthma outcomes, as well as help identify best practices for implementation of an asthma care program within a statewide early childhood education program, such as Head Start. (End of Abstract)